Pissy? I gave my input that might not align with what you thought, welcomed any opposing opinions and was more than willing to discuss any of those opposing views in detail.

Please share where which exact comments were pissy? lol and why they might insult shap? because i thought the question was silly for the reasons i stated? is that pissy?

How about you take other peoples opinions with a grain of salt and give your opposing views and why you think im wrong to have that opinion instead?

You want a debate that actually leads to learning something, youre going to have to deal with somebody with an opposing view that doesn't sugarcoat things sometimes. Otherwise this thread would have been full of people just posting websites to see where they can improve things. Not actually getting to the real reason he posted the thread. The thread was made for him to better himself (however that may be, i dont know yet), could be for knowledge of whats doing well now or the knowledge of howcome some sites aren't, possibly even to seek out opportunities, but in the end, it will be something that helps him grow. It wasn't to see how digitaldesire could increase sales 10-15 percent to delay its inevitable decline

I'm saying well done because you built something and were able to sell it and now work on something new. Why would I patronize you for that?

What am I supposed to be insulted by? Maybe I'm missing something

Anything in adult can be sold. And I havent began to work on anything new yet. So I dont believe it warrants a well done without knowing anything. But I dont expect you to say , yeah i was being a bit condescending and writeoffish, lets continue the conversation. (easier to plead ignorant than admit to being condescending) lol so ill just say...

OKAY :thumbsup

^ weird, look how that comes across :1orglaugh

I'd conjecture our content is the best in its niche. Sure I'd like more sales. I think that is just my own limitations preventing some next level stuff. I'm good at business. Not great.
Duke

Shap normally says "well done" just before he makes a job offer :winkwink:

I don't think we've ever done any business together (maybe I'm wrong) but clearly you don't know how I am. I was genuine with my "well done." I thought it was something you were proud of so I congratulated you on it. If you aren't I'm sorry.

I haven't taken any of your posts insulting. But now reading your follow up I take it you wanted me to take them as insulting?

:thumbsup: love it

I could go into so much detail about your program but considering I feel like I will just offend more people. I do have a quick tip:

First tour I opened, every single scene preview looked identical, a crop out of each of their heads, giving the impression that all the content is identical. You need variety on a tour.

I would go further but only if you want more advice

Email me duke at dukedollars

Well I would work on my posting style. A thumbs up when two people had opposing views and were just having a discussion, it appears as you are being condescending and want the conversation to end there. If you truly didn't see that (which i doubt), atleast its a tip for the future. :1orglaugh

I would leave thumbs up's out of all discussions with opposing views :2 cents:

You think because i think youre insulted, that implies that they were supposed to be? :1orglaugh interesting logic. i figured you were insulted due to your condescending response and no further questions or comments even though it was a topic you cared enough about to post, and seemed to not share the same opinion so i expected you to discuss it more in detail

lets leave it at that though. if you want to talk more about the topic at hand, ill respond

i'm on vacation and have been replying on my phone all day. No sigs on my phone so i had no clue what you ran. Now that i've got on my comp i see your sites.

You are a very sensitive person I take it?? You two were having a good back and forth, and then you leap into your cycle mode. Even when explained you read far to much into it.

Anyway continue a good thread with good thoughts on all sides.

i'm on vacation and have been replying on my phone all day. No sigs on my phone so i had no clue what you ran. Hence why i asked twice. Now that i've got on my comp i see your sites.

Lol my replies were short because i was on my phone. Hate typing long shit on my phone. You just happened to be posting your thoughts when i was in no position to reply long form.

Thanks for the advice on how to post but to be fair i think my posting style has worked ok for the past 15 years. I think i'll stick with :thumbsup:thumbsup

Pseudonymous now that I see your sites (or the ones you sold). They look great. Do you feel you incorporate most of the ideas and feedback you share with others? Or do you find it harder to implement them yourself?

lol given its shap, i feel like alot of people are going to be the white knight riding in. All i asked was if he was insulted considering his post seemed like it, and whether or not i think thats what he meant by it , doesn't matter, i dont care. lol do you see my flaming him? somebody who is sensitive does not continue to discuss the facts at hand

I dont incorporate them all myself, due to resources, niche limitations and what makes the most sense financially. for example, does it make the most sense to spend your time on doing one thing perfect or a greater expansion of your brand (more sites?) given my sites ran at 90 percent of their capabilities, i didnt' care enough. Given solo's limitation (small market), a site can only reach a certain level, if youre near that level, you move on. however then you run out of time, running that many sites. At that point, you decide if you want to expand and try to find people who can help/you can train (which is harder than one might think in this industry) or you can get into a larger market where one site has a greater ceiling, one site can go alot further

Every site not ran by a large company will have areas it can improve on, its time/profit. Could i make the poses/ composition/ etc better, could i offer zips, could i make multiple tours/landing pages, you name it, the list goes on, everybody could. But it just doesn't make sense to most of the time

Whoa new domain! Dat compliance... :pimp

Agreed. I find it's far easier to give advice than to actually do it yourself.

I think your sites look nice but they are super soft. Given how knowledgeable you are about what sells and where there are gaps in the market why go solo?

It's true, on an iPhone you can't see signatures in the posts :2 cents::2 cents:

:winkwink: Clearly makes me look stupid for asking repeatedly for something that was there

He's always had a good eye for solo girls that sell and finds them. Also I'd venture its low overhead/risk and provides a pretty good return on investment given the risks. Lower ceiling of course.

They are super soft for many reasons, to give some insight to people wanting to get into solo.

More graphic girls make more, however a more graphic model who is hot and graphic is much more rare. A girl that isn't super hot can fail or do great, depending on alot of things. So there are many routes you can do, only work with more grahic girls and either have some failures and the odd one that succeeds or only work with the hot graphic girls and end up only launching a site every 1-3 years.

I focus on profit, not return on investment. I can launch 5-10 solo softcore girls if i wanted, and all would return an investmetn, sure i spend more, but i make more. Point is, it makes more sense to launch 5 softcore girls in a shorter period of time than 3 more graphic girls over a longer period of time

Quantity has almost always beat quality in this industry, i consider my choice of path "quantity", however given my ability as a producer and experience with marketing, i am able to maintain pretty good quality while doing so. EPC (epicpandacash), they focus on quality.

Reason I didn't go into hardcore is capital. I was forced into going into this with a small budget that only gave me enough to launch a single site, since then , all of the sites were launched on the profit of the existing sites, with no further outside investments

Now hardcore is an option

Sadly I am late to the party

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That's all it's about. Who cares if the site looks pretty, looks shitty or looks boring?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Test, test, test. Whatever makes you the most coin, stop there. Rinse, repeat.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Would I rather have great content or massive amounts of traffic?

Agreed. MYFreeCams is perfect example

I disagree, there is little to no need for testing when you have an eye for content models and what sells. Testing is for people who haven't gone through testing or simply do not have the eye.

Some people have it, some dont. Some need to do alot more testing than others.

However when you get to become large enough, alot of testing has to happen because you can no longer be in charge of everything, you need to rely on workers and you cannot justify spending that much for somebody with that type of eye in every department/area of your business. So I guess with that side, you are right. However to reach that first level of success, i dont think much testing is needed

You may be late to the party but in 2001 when I was starting to build Twistys I was told I was late to the party. It's never too late if you have the right product.

Oh of course, I try to tell everybody that. But raising enough for a blacked.com type site off a single solo site, yeah, its not the same as just coming in with capital into 2015. If you have the capital, getting in is easy at anytime if you do things right, making that type of capital post tube era from a small investment, much much harder

Agreed. Are you a photographer and web guy? Or Web guy with the eye and you find the photographer?

Both, hence why there is room for improvement with my sites. Its a tough balancing act when you get to that many paysites. Updating my sites and making promo when i finished a 12 hour shoot day (while in another country) is tough

Yep. So how do we get you to launch the next big thing?

:1orglaugh This isnt a thread to discuss me. I was simply giving you my two cents when it came to the original question.. And i only went further into my situation as it related to the original topic (time management) Why are you trying to lead the direction towards myself? I already gave my opinions on where most sites are lacking. Why would you care when or if i launch a successful new site? I love how passive aggressive you are. lol

How about posting some sites that you personally think should be doing 'alot' better, and I can post some. You named a few large companies who produced good content still but you didn't specify if you thought they should be doing alot better? I mean areas where they coudl optimize a few things isn't the same as being capable of doing alot better

Most people come to Shap for advice, he's very generous with it, you've effectively gone to sit on Father Christmas' lap, refused his presents and now you're acting confused as to why he's offering them to you

I think you are either too full of yourself (having such a good eye you don't need testing) or have worked in such a small niche (solo girls) that you are blinded as to the value of testing. The type of testing I am talking about is the ONLY way to improve conversions, period. No one knows everything, and often you can make a tiny change you think will not affect sales and see a positive (or negative) result. A-B testing is the only surefire way to know what is working and what isn't.

Small sites can benefit most from this sort of testing. Get a simple A-B script and split test small changes to Tours. It works wonders. That's why when people make suggestions I have either tried/tested them or am willing to before making a final judgment.

I am talking marketing/selling here, not content creation. An artist will know what to do onset but marketing/selling is FAR different than creating compelling content. A good salesman can sell snow to an eskimo.

I am not talking about a/b testing having no effect, i never said that it can't be a big part of marketing. I am suggesting a/b testing will not usually be the reason you reach a successful level or not if you have a great product (unless you happen to just be on that line), somebody with a lesser product, its going to be much more needed to profit. this is no different than in sports, somebody with less natural ability has to put in less effort and time. this is just how it is.

a/b testing is a bonus. content is king. you can succeed with great content and little marketing (and still maintain a higher ceiling), while on the other hand, you are extremely limited with a poor product and more often than not, will simply fail, even with alot of marketing experience

i was only disagreeing with the part that its all about testing. it is not. there has been plenty of successful sites to do well without a ton of a/b testing

I can literally give you a long list to back up my opinion, of websites that are ran by large companies that fail. Is it because they dont know a/b testing? Definitely not. most sites do not fail due to a/b testing

but i'd welcome to throw around some websites names and dig deeper into it, willing to listen to any reasonable argument

Content is clearly not king. Marketing meets traffic is king. The "reason" many sites from big companies fail is because of the traffic that big company has accumulated and is not using effectively.

See, that's the thing about "traffic". You need a lot of it - but not TOO much of it. Otherwise you reach saturation levels, which is what has happened to many big companies (the Brazzers and MoFos of the world). These companies have the resources to blast ad buys, traffic buys, social marketing, tubes, the entire gamut of traffic possibilities. And believe me, they BLAST IT. But when people see the same content, or same type of niches, suddenly everywhere they make quick judgments. Either they LOVE IT or HATE IT and that new "big" site dies (or succeeds) quickly. Building traffic step-by-step, once the norm in Adult, is now harder and harder to do.

So the smaller sites need more and the big sites have too much. LOL Sure the big boys A-B test but when you are promoting the next big thing on nearly every large adult traffic site on Earth you get your answers pretty quick. It would be interesting to hear how big a bath some big companies have taken on their next big paysite project. If they would tell, of course (they won't).

this whole portion of your post is supporting what i'm trying to explain to you. they have the money and marketing ability but because their saturation levels are high and they are not able to figure out that they cannot use the same sources for content, same method for creating content, etc and achieve similar success

its not even about marketing as a whole, nevermind a/b testing specifically.

and that last comment about they either love it or hate it, i hear alot of people say this type of thing, and in every case, its just because they dont realize why. Things are not a coincidence, there is a reason why people iwll not like something or why they will like it, its not a hit or miss thing.. its not luck

every site that has failed, there are specific reasons for this. every site thats succeded, there is a reason. and those things are more obvious to some than others. im generally speaking, not referring to you or me

this is why large companies continue to fail with websites

i can give you a list of websites ran by people who didn't have long history of marketing experience and did no a/b testing, how many can you name with lousy content that is big, that launched in modern era? think its safe to say content is the most important thing now. especially given the platform that is now the current standard of promotion

when people refer to content being king, its said to be king because its the most important thing, the most vital. not because its all you need.

I remember the first time i saw porn site (back in 1998) i was looking at Veronika Zemanova for hours :-)